Strategy Blog

The Top Five Benefits of Strategic Workforce Planning

Tue, 31 Jan 2012 19:03:49 GMT

High-performance organizations are integrating workforce planning initiatives into their business and strategic planning processes more than ever, and the number of companies working on workforce planning has increased to over three quarters since 2009, according to a new study by the Institute for Corporate Productivity (i4cp).

Still, many companies are struggling to see results, as only 16% of human capital professionals surveyed by i4cp in late 2011 rated their organizations as effective at workforce planning. However, high-performance organizations are nearly twice as likely as lower performers to be effective at it.

Although success at workforce planning eludes many organizations, the prospect of the profound benefits it promises makes it a critical must-have competency for business. A new report that outlines the study's key findings and features insights from i4cp member organizations including Toyota Financial Services, Black Hills Corporation and Luminant, explains the key benefits of devoting proper time and resources to implementing a workforce planning program.

Through research and in-depth discussions with senior executives, i4cp has identified that strategic workforce planning:

1. Supports the budgeting process

As workforce planning outputs continue to grow more robust, other business leaders are likely to follow the example set by their counterparts at higher-performing companies and rely more on this evolving resource to help feed the budgeting process.

2. Supports the strategic/business planning process

A director of HR at a major North American energy and utility provider says it best: "Strategic workforce planning is an embedded part of the annual and multi-year business planning process".

3. Identifies shortage of qualified talent to fill critical roles

Strategic workforce planning helps highlight talent shortages, speeding up the process of identifying sources of new talent that could, upon hire, make significant business impact.

4. Serves as a mechanism for identifying critical talent

With proper integration, workforce planning improves communication between human resources and business units and subsequently the ability to identify and retain the most important talent.

5. (tie) Identifies skills gaps in the workforce

"We've needed to have discussions about the people and skills our businesses need to accomplish strategic initiatives, and those conversations make more feasible planning possible," says Toyota Financial Services workforce planning & analysis manager Michael LeBrun.

5. (tie) Acts as a mechanism for identifying critical roles

Mirroring item four, business units are more able and willing to work with human resources to identify specific roles that, if left unfilled, could damage the organization's bottom line and simultaneously deliver greater returns if properly filled.

Realizing the benefits of strategic workforce planning is easier said than done; it takes time, training and sponsorship from the most senior levels of leadership. i4cp's new strategic workforce planning report - Strategic Workforce Planning: Practitioner Insights - explains how some companies are seeing results, both at the business level and within human resources. "Workforce planning is giving our HR business partners within each business unit the tools they need to take part in the units' strategy planning," says Beth Peters, organization development specialist for Black Hills Corp. "It's moving the perception of them beyond the transactional focus."

The strategic workforce planning report is now available exclusively to i4cp members and participants in i4cp's strategic workforce planning research working group, who aided in the development of the study. For more information about i4cp's research or the strategic workforce planning working group, please visit http://www.i4cp.com/solutions

Unwrap This Present from i4cp Early

Fri, 09 Dec 2011 10:34:00 GMT

E-learning thought leader Dr. Nick van Dam recently provided the i4cp community with four chapters from his latest book Next Learning, Unwrapped!. These documents, available for free exclusively to i4cp members, are insightful samples illustrating how cutting-edge companies are using technology-based learning platforms to help shape their workforces. Each one examines a different aspect of the e-learning business case, addressing challenges and focusing on the resources needed to make an effective and strategic e-learning initiative.

Gain valuable insights from these i4cp member-exclusive preview samples.

Case Study - Microsoft on Standardizing Technology-based Learning: Microsoft uses a technology-based learning platform to support globally dispersed field employees, to provide up-to-date product and service information and to keep field employees on top of the latest innovations.

Case Study - Deloitte on Developing an Internal Social Networking Platform: In 2006, the company began its internal social networking initiative - dubbed D Street - to help appeal to Millennial recruits that prefer technology-based platforms for networking and learning.

Case Study - Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan on Transforming Culture Through e-Learning: Non-profit Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan (BCBSM), in an effort to better compete against their for-profit health insurance company competition, embraced technology-based learning as a conduit for their Performance Transformation initiatives.

Case Study - SAP on Continuous e-Learning: In the fast-paced world of business software, SAP recognizes the need to move beyond learning for simple informational awareness into the realm of on-demand, purposeful, high-impact learning delivered when needed to meet business demands.

See also Dr. van Dam's 2011 i4cp webinar on Next Learning, Unwrapped to learn more about the innovative, technology-based learning solutions that leading organizations are using now to help achieve their business goals.

Why You Should Measure Time to Full Productivity

Wed, 14 Sep 2011 16:19:46 GMT

Despite recognition of the fundamental benefits of integrating talent management, many organizations acknowledge that they are not as effective as they'd like to be at managing their talent.

To address this gap, i4cp assembled a talent management working group from select organizations to explore four key talent management effectiveness metrics. Based on insights from that group, i4cp Senior Analyst Carol Morrison developed the Metrics of High-Performance Talent Management white paper series:

The fourth and final paper in the series, Time-to-full-productivity, is now available exclusively to members.

Time-to-full-productivity is a metric few organizations use, but which many acknowledge they should be tracking. Just 16% of respondents to an i4cp survey stated that they use the time-to-full-productivity metric to a high or very high extent, but 64% say they should be using it to manage talent more effectively.

There are various ways of approaching and defining time-to-full-productivity:

The time required to ensure that a new employee has all the credentials and equipment necessary in order to perform his or her job duties.
The period required for the new employee to master the skills needed to perform his/her job duties at a fully productive level.
The time required for the new employee to achieve a degree of proficiency that matches that of a colleague with two-to-three years' experience.

Tracking time-to-full-productivity offers the benefit of yielding insights into multiple organizational functions. Four ways organizations can use time-to-full-productivity to improve programs and the effectiveness of the workforce are:

Gauging the success of the recruitment process.
A candidate who was accurately sourced and screened should come up to speed in an expedient manner, while a poor hire (perhaps lacking in credentials or skill sets) might be more likely to founder.
Aligning job descriptions to the reality of the workplace.
Using the previous example, a slow path to proficiency might indicate to HR that it is not providing accurate job descriptions to candidates.
Determining training success.
If a new hire has been assigned a mentor or a coach, the employee's speed to productivity can offer one means of evaluating the effectiveness of that mentoring/coaching experience.
Identifying impediments to productivity.
Time-to-full-productivity can reveal multiple factors that lengthen the time an employee requires to reach full competency.

This new, member-exclusive white paper explains other uses for this powerful metric, as well as additional considerations and calculation recommendations. Download the Time-to-full-productivity White Paper now.

*It is important to note that no single metric is likely to definitively confirm or refute complete success in any given area, but at the very least, time-to-full-productivity can serve as a valid clue to help identify wins and pinpoint potential problems.

Why You Should Be Tracking Quality of Movement

Wed, 17 Aug 2011 13:20:00 GMT

As organizations place more emphasis on getting the most out of their talent, the need for robust human capital analytics continues to grow in importance. Several i4cp research studies have shown that the companies who track advanced metrics and statistics, and subsequently have more integrated talent management systems, are more likely to outperform their competitors.

Through these studies, i4cp and several of its member companies - some of the largest and most respected in the world - have worked together to determine which metrics high-performance organizations are using, how they're using them and why.

One such metric is quality of movement, featured in a new, member-exclusive white paper by senior i4cp analyst Carol Morrison.

When any type of internal movement takes place - such as an employee's advancement (promotion) or lateral or even downward movement - an organization needs to know whether or not the action has addressed a need and delivered value toward achieving company objectives. They must track more than that the move occurred, but the business results of the move as well. Did productivity for that position rise? Has the promoted worker remained in the job for a specified period of time?

Quality of movement is especially important for tracking and measuring employees considered highly valuable to their organizations, such as high-potential (Hi-Pos) or high-performing employees.

And yet, few companies measure quality of movement for these employees.

The i4cp/Human Resource Executive 2011 High-Performance Organizations Survey shows that just over 20% of respondents agree or strongly agree that their organizations have transparent, formal processes to identify and develop their Hi-Pos. Even fewer - only 9% - strongly agree that they identify and track Hi-Pos well.

So according to i4cp research, few even know who their high-potential employees (Hi-Pos) are. These individuals, valued as future leaders to be developed in the organizations succession pipeline, have suffered through years of sagging compensation budgets and are considered a higher turnover risk once greater rewards and opportunities are made available. Added to this is i4cp data showing that less than a third of organization track metrics such as internal placement rates, promotion rates or time to full productivity - although more than two-thirds recognize that they should.

While high-performance organizations are more likely to identify and develop Hi-Pos (36%), that still means most companies are flying blind when it comes to some of their most valued employees. They have no way of knowing whether Hi-Pos are being identified correctly, promoted quickly enough and whether they remain at the company post-move.

Furthermore, measuring quality of movement also serves as a sort of acid test of organizational integrity. Often, firms publicize their commitment to hiring from within and advancing employees. Tracking of internal movement confirms that the organization actually does follow through by hiring internally and by promoting its existing employees. Taking the process a step further to incorporate tracking of retention after internal movement is the icing on the cake. It demonstrates the company's commitment to identifying glitches in the process so that action can be taken to correct them.

Quality of movement is an important metric in the shift toward more effective measures in talent management. It places the focus on how well a process is working by tracking results and making linkages to business results; a more strategic and forward thinking approach. This more strategic use of talent management metrics will also allow organizations to be more proactive and agile in the talent marketplace, responding to threats and opportunities before their competitors.

For more information, download i4cp's Quality of Movement White Paper, available exclusively to members.

Dress Codes: Keeping Up Appearances, Not Productivity

Tue, 19 Jul 2011 17:00:00 GMT

As I sit in my office, Bermuda shorts and sandals tucked under my desk and a casual button-down shirt above, I think I can say without any bias that, no - how one dresses does not have an impact on productivity, professionalism or engagement. A jacket doesn't make the man, a tie doesn't focus the mind, dress shoes don't energize the body and slacks bestow no known superpower. You can dress for success all you want, but it won't actually make you better at your job.

That said, why is it that so many organizations maintain and enforce a dress code? First, for years people have been told that how one looks does improve performance. Some swear that hard data exists showing that business formal dress heightens alertness, improves manners, promotes professionalism, reduces tardiness and absenteeism, and increases engagement in the workplace. For them, being crisp and polished shows pride and being well dressed exudes authority.

It's a pervasive attitude - nevertheless, there are no definitive studies I've reviewed that show it to be true. And actually, if you check sources, a lot of the propaganda that's out there was sponsored by either the makers of formal wear or, since the rise of business casual, khaki and polo shirt outlets. For every study showing that business formal dress improves productivity by creating a professional environment, there's another showing that casual comfort does the same by increasing employee morale. But most non-anecdotal, controlled studies simply show little or no affect in either direction. And remember that morale is not engagement - a common misnomer.

Not surprisingly, employees tend to think casual comfort is more productive, while employers want their team members to look sharp. Neither contention shows a causal link, though. Really.

The second and more important reason dress codes are put in place is that they are an element of corporate culture, image and branding. While I might contend that clothing won't make you better at your job, it is true that it might make others perceive you as being better at your job.

A recent Ipsos Global @dvisory: Proper Attire in the Workplace global study of attitudes in 24 countries showed that "45% of workers think someone wearing casual work clothes is more productive in their job than someone wearing a more prescribed workplace or business attire … but 55% of workers believe someone wearing a more prescribed workplace or business attire is more productive in their job than someone wearing casual work clothes." A slight bias, but also one that the study shows can be much more pronounced in certain regions. My personal dress code is fairly normal … in Hungaria.

In general, people expect lawyers, bankers and executives to wear ties, office workers should at least wear business or smart casual, and many other professions and work settings require some type of uniform, be they scrubs, overalls or a monogrammed shirt. How else are appropriate rolls and social norms to be determined at a glance? And in the above mentioned Ipsos study, "two-thirds (65%) of workers said that senior managers should always be more dressed up than employees." So though they want to be judged by their work and not their wardrobe, most will still assign status and importance to the guy with the tie.

Of course how this plays out depends on your industry and line of work. While I'd be shocked to see a bank officer dressed like Shaggy from Scooby Doo, a video game tester would gain no cred from a tie - at least not one that didn't depict Mario on a field of mushrooms or have an iPod docking station built in. And different generations will always bring their unique attitudes to the workplace; not necessarily more casual, but something different none the less (eg. given a sharp stick, kids today will pierce anything). This has made defining business casual increasingly precarious over the years.

There are always ebbs, flows and pervasive trends in ideas about what's appropriate to wear to work. And while the workplace has progressed to increasingly more casual attire since the seventies, the shift to street casual for professionals has pulled back since the Dot-com bubble burst forced many a maverick to get a grownup job. Right now, business or smart casual is the norm for most, with the occasional relaxed casual day thrown in for a morale booster.

But no matter how casual it gets, dress codes - or at least some semblance of guidelines - are still a good thing to have in place. Why? Because there's always somebody that's going to push it and take things too far in the forms of a tattered jean, bare midriff, too-short skirt or a t-shirt bearing an offensive (to someone) message. Somebody might even show up with no clothes … and then you'll have to deal with that mess with no clear policy on the books.

If you're worried about enforcement, remember that there's a weird interplay when it comes to dress codes as far as career advancement is concerned. While most surveys say that employees (especially those in their 20s) value more casual work environments and that this can help to retain high-performers, it's also true that dressing less formally leads to less recognition for accomplishments and less professional respect or regard on the part of colleagues. And dressing up for hiring interviews is business formal, with very little leeway. One way cited to promote "business appropriate" attire is for managers to frame it as a good choice for advancement and recognition. Again, creative environments may vary.

As a final thought, keep in mind when designing a dress or appearance code to craft it carefully and apply it consistently to avoid running afoul of anti-discrimination laws. Private businesses usually have a lot of leeway in this area, but reasonable accommodation should always be considered. Whether deemed necessary from a legal standpoint or not, religious or cultural accommodations generally have a positive impact on engagement and productivity, as they reflect positively on an organizations image in regard to diversity and inclusion.

Dress codes are about keeping up appearances and standards, not productivity and engagement. For customer-facing positions, base your decisions on the customers' expectations and you'll usually be okay.

I'm always surprised by how passionate people feel about dress and appearance policies. Share your thoughts and let me know how your organization views business appropriate attire.

My LMS Vendor Just Got Acquired By Another Company! Now What?!

Wed, 04 May 2011 15:13:00 GMT

The landscape of learning management system (LMS) vendors is constantly changing. There have been dozens of acquisitions in the past decade, including a big one [last] week. This can be a scary time if your organization happens to be using an LMS that gets acquired by or is merging with another company. After all, you've most likely invested thousands of dollars and many hours getting the system set up and configured to work well. So, if your LMS vendor gets acquired by another company, what should you do? What questions should you ask?

My first piece of advice would be: Just relax. The process of merging two businesses generally takes a while. You most likely won't see any overnight changes. Take this time to think through several scenarios and prepare a list of questions for your account representative.

Below is a starter list of questions that you may want to ask. The account rep may not know all of the answers if the news is still fresh, but it's good to start thinking in these terms. To keep things straight, I'll use the terms acquirer (the company making the purchase) and acquiree (the company being purchased).

Question to ask:

Why (specifically) was the company acquired?
How will the roadmap for the LMS change?
Will the underlying technologies change?
What products, services, features, etc., of the acquirer will be made available to clients of the acquiree?
How will the support model change for the acquiree, if at all?
Will the hourly rate change for the acquiree? (ex. For customizations)
Will any of your technical or support contacts change?
Will there (still?) be an annual conference for the LMS and its users?

I'm sure I left off some questions. What else would you add?

This article was originally posted by B.J. Schone in eLearning. April 28, 2011.

Rise of the Machines

Wed, 27 Apr 2011 08:08:00 GMT

The Terminator mythology aside, it looks as if the machines are indeed winning out over humanity … at least as far as corporate spending investments are concerned.

It also seems that, regardless of how many times we repeat the mantra "people are our most important asset" and how many politicians say their top priority is getting the American people back to work, we're still not ready to actually light the fuse under the glutted job market and invest in people.

An article published on Bloomberg.com last month gave me the answer I've been looking for as to why the jobs market has yet to heat up to the degree I thought it should be by now. Based on the report Man vs. Machine, published by Bank of America Merrill Lynch, the Bloomberg article details how current tax breaks offered to businesses aren't supporting job creation, but are instead promoting investment in capital spending for equipment upgrades. Add to that a low rate on borrowing and it only makes sense for the recession-timid (and soulless) business world to build capacity cheaply without adding year-over-year cost in the form of personnel. Score one for the machines.

Top that off with uncertainty in the realm of health care spending and, well, it really seems better to not spend money now on employee salaries that could end up costing more than expected as new aspects of health care reform come into effect. Wouldn't it be cheaper to just launch an AI control satellite into space to make our machines more efficient? Score two.

The direction of the current corporate low road is producing an unprecedented post-recessionary gap between capital spending on new equipment and investments in staffing. So while money is flowing into the economy and steady productivity gains are once again being achieved through these investments, the job market and, vicariously, the consumer markets and spending are seeing no more than gradual and shaky advances. And as long as productivity continues to increase by investing in more efficient machines, longer-term investments in people will remain stunted.

And the fictional Cyberdyne Systems of the Terminator franchise isn't the only profit-blinded company behind this mechanical coup. It seems that far too many have forgotten the important lesson of building up markets by building up the working class (consumers) with jobs and disposable income. After all, robots don't eat out at restaurants, go on vacations or buy any of the household goods that comprise the biggest part of gross domestic product.

The machines are getting smarter and more efficient, inventories are being rebuilt … but mass consumer markets are still depressed due to slow/moderate improvement in unemployment rates and only trickles of investment going into salary and wage increases that were stifled during the recession. And while bonuses are back with a vengeance for those at the top, the money isn't trickling down far enough in the form of pay raises to significantly kick off the consumer spending that would support overall and sustained market growth.

Now, while I don't want to get on the bad side of our future mechanical masters, I contend that this current trend may be stifling humanity's last great hurrah for the sake of inflated productivity that isn't tied to a well-balanced and middle-centric consumer sector. That's bad for us squishy meatbags.

On the other hand, I also think that the machine-made productivity gains currently choking off long-term employment growth may be serving as an important buffer period before the job market heats up and a messy talent war begins. In other words, it might be helping to control the inevitable churn among workers that's currently predicted based on historically low satisfaction and loyalty rates. This is why more strategically focused organizations are already shifting emphasis to the retention of top talent and shoring up their employment brand and reviewing their total compensation package. Perhaps a slower simmer in the job market will allow for more gradual increases in spending on salaries, benefits, recruitment, development, etc.

As I post this blog and find myself yet to be stopped by killer cyborgs or freedom fighters from the future, I'll remain optimistic. This period may not be the machines' economic salvo before my Rumba achieves sentience and tries to take me out at the ankles (but I'm still not turning my back on it).

For those still waiting for jobs and lamenting the unusually slow pace of recovery, all I can say is "there's no fate but what you make."

i4cp Study: Companies are Gearing Up for the Coming Talent War

Wed, 26 Jan 2011 17:00:00 GMT

As companies begin to see the light at the end of the recession tunnel, many are beginning to confront the reality that employees are preparing to jump ship en masse. After several years of decreased investment in employee development, layoffs and salary freezes, employers are vulnerable to having their best talent picked off.

And, of course, the most talented employees are the first to get poached.

The new The Critical Human Capital Issues of 2011 report from the Institute for Corporate Productivity (i4cp) is based on research conducted last month with hundreds of human resources professionals. Findings indicate a growing urgency among these organizations, driving them to focus on issues that will see them through what appears to be a potential talent free-for-all.

Nine of this year's top ten issues increased in criticality from 2010, a measure determined by an i4cp index that is calculated by multiplying the mean score for the importance of an issue by another number related to an organizations ability to manage that issue effectively. The only issue that didn't show an increase, change management, remained relatively flat with 2010 results.

The top 15 most critical human capital issues of 2011 are:

Several of the top issues of 2011 are perennial favorites that tend to bounce up and down the top rankings but never move far or fall off the list. What is more insightful is the difference between what's critical for higher performers and lower performers, as determined by i4cp's market performance index (MPI).

Studying what's important for successful companies as well as seeing what issues they identify as being in need of strengthening for effectiveness is where true competitive advantages are found.

A deeper examination of the top ten issues, including those deemed most critical by high-performance organizations, are analyzed in the new i4cp report, now available to all members.

New Year, New Measurement Challenges

Tue, 11 Jan 2011 09:28:00 GMT

The definition of talent management has become a bit like Justice Potter Stewart's definition of pornography: "I know it when I see it." While reasonable minds can disagree on subtleties, at the core, talent management is about the attraction, retention and development of employees. Measuring talent management effectiveness requires knowing the answer to questions such as "Is the organization attracting better quality applicants?" or "Is the organization retaining its most productive employees?"

With this general talent management definition in mind, the Institute for Corporate Productivity (i4cp) launched a study in April 2010 to understand how organizations were measuring the effectiveness of their talent management efforts. More than 400 business and HR professionals participated in the Talent Management Measurement survey, which yielded a dreary snapshot of the current state of the field.

A Sad State of Measurement Affairs

There is an obvious disconnect within organizations between awareness of the need for good talent management measurements and the willingness to invest what is needed to create actionable measurements. As an example, while 75 percent of respondents reported to a high extent that they should use quality of hire measures to manage talent better, only 16 percent actually do (Figure 1). Looking at high- and low-performing organizations does not change the picture substantively. Seventy-nine percent of high-performing organizations believe they should use quality of hire measures, but only 22 percent are in fact using these measures to a great extent.

Figure 1

Examining the retention measurement results reveals a similar picture. Only 27.5 percent of survey participants measure high-performing employee separation rates, while nearly 60 percent believe they should be measuring the rate at which high-performing employees are leaving the organization (Figure 2).

Figure 2

On the investment side of the equation, just 26 percent of survey respondents believe their organization has enough personnel dedicated to the measurement of talent outcomes. Roughly 21 percent of participants feel their organizations have adequate infrastructure, technology, budget and time devoted to measure talent management effectiveness (Figure 3).

Figure 3

These survey results might not feel like news; organizations have struggled to successfully measure their people resources for more than 40 years. With so few organizations actually measuring the effectiveness of talent management, a fair question might be "Why bother?"

While it is true that relatively few organizations are measuring the effectiveness of talent management, there are positive correlations between high-performing organizations, specific measures and measurement practices. While correlation does not mean causation, it does mean there is a significant relationship between these measures and high market performance.

In addition to specific measures, the study revealed two "next" practices. A next practice is defined by i4cp as something few organizations do, but something that has a high correlation or can predict market success.

First, only 20 percent of respondents reported that their organizations had a workforce management strategy, but it is correlated to high market performance. Second, 37 percent of organizations gauge the success of their talent management processes by monitoring leadership success, but regression analysis revealed this practice is predictive of high market performance (adjusted R2 = 0.07).

Surprisingly, some often heavily debated measurement practices such as frequency, the technology solution used and who calculates the measures were not statistically different, meaning there is no right answer to the question "Should our organization report monthly or quarterly?" or "Should HR or the business be responsible for calculating the results?"

The Talent Management Measurement Conundrum

HR leaders understand the need to share talent management success stories with their organizations. The most effective evidence when building the story is data. The conundrum is that to secure resources to measure talent management effectiveness, talent managers need evidence that talent management positively impacts the organization, but gaining this evidence requires dedicated resources.

Other factors compound the conundrum. First, it is intuitively challenging to directly make the link between talent management activities and bottom-line impact. There is an extended time delay between talent management activity and people investments and when an organization will reap the benefits. In some cases, it can take years to develop a leadership bench or to see the impact of a new strategy. Second, it is during this time delay that many intervening events take place that make proving causation almost impossible.

Organizations are not likely to run their employees through investigative trials to obtain scientific evidence that one talent management practice is better than another or doing nothing at all. Even the rare organization that might consider such an activity would struggle to apply the results because the business environment is so dynamic. Can a talent manager say a practice that worked three years before the financial crisis will have the same impact in today's "new normal"?

Solving the Measurement Challenge

Organizations that believe they can gain a competitive advantage through their talent are not staying idle waiting for a solution to appear. Interviewing dozens of companies, i4cp identified three techniques organizations are using to answer the question "How is our talent management doing?"

Define the organization's criteria for talent management success. At first blush, defining a quality hire seems obvious, but for different roles or the same role in a different organization there can be vastly different answers. This is a major reason benchmarks on talent management effectiveness are uncommon.

For example, an organization that invests heavily in assessment tools or other selection devices will expect the retention and productivity of hires to be much higher than an organization that hires for culture fit and expects employees to wash out in the first 90 days. These differences in approach make benchmarking nearly impossible.

Even within an organization, expectations for roles such as clerical staff, engineers and executives are quite different, from cost to recruit to time to full productivity.

Segment talent management effectiveness measures. The most successful organization provides a macro-statistic for comparative purposes as a guide to understand how segmented measures contrast to overall results, or it does not provide a macro-result at all. There are three advantages to the former approach.

First, it is easier to measure a segment of the workforce. In many cases, no expensive technology is required; all that is needed is a spreadsheet. Defining and isolating the segment can be a challenge, but once the population is understood, the calculations are relatively straightforward.

Second, as Einstein is often quoted, "Not everything that can be measured counts." Many organizations conserve their limited resources by identifying the employee populations where a clear success criterion has been identified. Management prefers a prioritized view over a phone book of statistics.

Third, to get to the heart of measuring talent management outcomes, detailed and qualitative data is needed. Data that is not collected for all employees or that would be overwhelming to assemble broadly is not a requirement. By segmenting the employee population and limiting measurement to those groups with clear outcomes, manually adding additional data elements is no longer an overwhelming prospect.

Regularly and routinely review talent management effectiveness measures. The organizations that can answer the question "How is our talent management doing?" regularly produce a workforce report and share the data with the executive team and the entire HR function. The April 2010 i4cp study showed a positive correlation between market performance and organizations that distribute workforce data to the executive team. Only 26 percent of survey respondents share workforce data with all of HR, but sharing this data is a step toward achieving integrated talent management.

As organizations look forward to 2011 with a clean slate, this is the year to develop a workforce measurement strategy with an empowered owner. The owner can be a champion from the business, a talent manager or a steering committee. For example, at Liberty Mutual Group, the executive team acts as the owner and approves any changes to the data dictionary, which limits the number of changes.

The who is not as important as the what. A talent measurement strategy needs to articulate the organizational philosophy and objectives and have the endorsement of the leadership team. This is the year to identify the employee segments the organization will concentrate on with agreed and customized success criteria that is reviewed regularly. If small steps are taken today, by the end of the year an organization should know the answer to how its talent management is doing.

This article was originally published in the January 2011 edition of Talent Management magazine.

Don't Shoot the Wikimessenger

Fri, 17 Dec 2010 15:29:00 GMT

By now we're all up to date on the latest release of classified documents by WikiLeaks. Having this information made public on a global scale has caused great embarrassment for the U.S. State Department, as well as many other world diplomats. Depending on whom you ask, this is either an amusing behind-the-scenes look at high-level diplomacy, or the greatest act of treason ever perpetrated against the U.S. (Fun Fact: Treason against the U.S. can only be committed by a U.S. citizen, which WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is not).

On the heels of this latest document dump comes some serious sweating and hand-wringing from Bank of America (BoA), which is rumored to be WikiLeaks' next target. Assange has said he's sitting on a treasure trove of data from a large U.S. bank, and in an interview, claimed to have a hard drive once belonging to a BoA executive. The rumor was strong enough to induce a temporary 3% drop in BoA's stock price.

Rest assured these events will have a chilling effect on the social media efforts of many organizations. Research from i4cp has found that corporate leaders are often very resistant to the implementation of social media technologies. This episode will likely give those who are opposed to using these tools more ammunition when saying no. Imagine what will happen when the CFO hears that the company wants to start an internal wiki to share best practices. "Isn't that the thing that crushed Bank of America? No thanks."

But wikis are a very effective collaboration tool, and any organization that shuns them (or any other social media technologies) purely for security reasons is missing a real opportunity. These high profile incidents are not caused by social media. Social media did not drop a 5GB hard drive into Assange's lap. Information leaks like this will get out if proper protocol is followed or not. WikiLeaks did not hack anything to get the diplomatic cables, or the military documents it published earlier in the year. These things were given to them, albeit through the power of social media, by people within the organizations. Something broke down in the security protocol within the organizations affected.

The problem does not lie with the technology, although it undoubtedly makes it easier to share and disseminate information. Instead, the problem lies within the organization. If there is proprietary information that must never go outside of the organization, take precautions to make sure that it doesn't happen. i4cp's Social Network Regulation Survey found that companies that use these types of technologies normally take precautions to prevent leaks, including firewalls, policies, training and monitoring. If there is wrongdoing that would be better left undiscovered, perhaps technology is not your biggest problem and you need to focus more on business ethics.

So are the calls for Assange's head appropriate? Is it his fault that diplomats spoke poorly about one another in their cables? It's not because of WikiLeaks that people said one thing publicly while a completely different truth was communicated confidentially; WikiLeaks is simply the vehicle by which the awkward truth has become known. If critics are successful in shutting down WikiLeaks, two more will likely pop up in a matter of days. It's the same as what happened with illegal file sharing (anyone remember Napster?). In fact, once Amazon shut down WikiLeaks' servers, they were moved to a bunker-like cave in Sweden within a day. Even when their domain provider shut down WikiLeaks.org, WikiLeaks.ch was up in a matter of hours.

You can't put the toothpaste back in the tube. This technology isn't going away, and indeed will only become more prevalent and easier to use. Companies need to get ahead of the curve to determine how they are going to leverage it while keeping themselves safe.

What's your opinion? Who do you think is ultimately culpable: WikiLeaks, social media, the leakers or organizations that promote a culture rife with embarrassing secrets?

Don’t Shoot the Wikimessenger

Mon, 06 Dec 2010 16:20:00 GMT

Let the Ship-jumping Begin!

Fri, 03 Dec 2010 09:45:00 GMT

About three years ago a storm began that soon went full-economic tsunami, with unrestrained waves of cutbacks and layoffs that seemed to have no end.

At its peak you and your colleagues scrambled into a lifeboat and bailed frantically, hanging on as the indifferent seas pitched you around. At one point it seemed like your buckets were shrinking incrementally until you ended up bailing with cone-shaped paper cups from the water cooler. You watched helplessly as colleague after colleague drifted away and, after a while, you avoided eye contact with your fellow survivors who likewise hunkered as deeply into the lifeboat as possible. For a time you bobbed along, hitting pockets of turbulent waters here and there but for the most part things sort of calmed down.

But how long will that relative calm last? While there have been proclamations of the recession ending as long as a year ago, people are still losing their jobs, businesses continue to be sunk and underwater homeowners go on floundering. The recession may be over on paper but the uneasy sense of being adrift and utterly rudderless lingers.

And there's something else - lately you have noticed that your lifeboat has begun to tip to one side. In recent weeks the tipping has become more pronounced and sustained. You look around and realize that the tipping is caused by some of your surviving colleagues who are poised pre-swan-dive on the edge of the lifeboat. Yes, after everything you have been through together, your colleagues have had it with the all-hands-on-deck mantra and are about to jump overboard into awaiting speedboats that will carry them away to the higher salaries, better benefits and flexibility they dreamed of while treading water. You think you must be crazy not to follow.

Employers should get ready for the next tsunami - the wave of defections that will build rapidly once the U.S. labor market opens up in earnest. And who can blame workers for jumping ship? Longtime employees who took huge pay cuts, saw their workloads double, triple, then quadruple, and eschewed vacations for fear of appearing to be less than fully engaged at work may be the first to throw off their lines and navigate their own courses.

And professionals who were set adrift during the recession grabbed at any lifeline thrown to them the past three years, so the glut of people who are underpaid and ridiculously overqualified for the jobs they currently occupy is significant. Experts warn that employers will likely be caught unprepared, and Joe Light recently wrote in the Wall Street Journal that "employers who snapped up top talent on the cheap in the depth of the recession should start worrying about defections."

What can employers do to try to hang on to their top talent? Research conducted by i4cp found that the most commonly used retention strategies include increasing communication to employees, increasing focus on talent management and succession planning and offering leadership training for first-line managers/supervisors. But your best bet is sweetening the deal with pay increases and advancement opportunities.

Has your organization started ramping up its retention efforts?

Let the Ship-jumping Begin!

Wed, 24 Nov 2010 13:31:00 GMT

Middle Managers Spread Thin as Organizational Structure Flattens

Fri, 24 Sep 2010 13:56:00 GMT

If leaders feel stretched today, it's only going to get worse in the future, indicates new research by the Institute for Corporate Productivity (i4cp). Finding structural efficiencies by expanding spans of control has become a necessity in the current economic climate. However, the i4cp study shows that flattening organizational structure doesn't necessarily result in a competitive advantage. While there are advantages, organizational restructuring may lead to greater stress, disengagement and burnout among middle managers.

The member-requested Organizational Structure and Spans of Control study reveals little difference between high-performance organizations and lower performing ones. Most companies are responding to the realities of the economy and won't see a competitive advantage from flattening their structure. Still, the shift represents a matter of competitive necessity and, in many cases, survival.

According to the study, leaders at all levels are dealing with larger teams than five years ago and many companies expect the number of reporting employees to increase in the future. Over 35% of managers in large companies already have 11 to 25 employees reporting to them, and 75% of companies expect those numbers to rise or remain the same in the future.

"Companies looking to further flatten their organizational structures need to weigh efficiency and agility gains against disengagement and burnout among middle managers - or all managers, for that matter," said David Wentworth, Senior Analyst at i4cp.

Middle managers are often the hardest hit since expanding spans of control at multiple levels of the organization exponentially enlarges the number of people they are both directly and indirectly accountable for managing. Middle managers, the key players for successful strategy execution, "report dramatically lower levels of contentment than their more senior colleagues do, as well as less of a desire to stay with their current employers," according to a 2009 McKinsey report.

Through its research, i4cp uncovered important benchmarking data for effective spans of control, which is now available to i4cp member companies. The benchmarks examine the average number of vice presidents, directors and managers based on organization size as well as the median spans of control for each of these management layers. This data is currently available to i4cp member companies via the Corporate Restructuring Knowledge Center.

For example, the study determined that the average number of management levels in large companies (10,000 employees or more), from the CEO down to individual contributors, is seven.

The i4cp Organizational Structure and Spans of Control study was conducted in August 2010. The full results of this survey are available to i4cp member companies in both report and Interactive Data format.

An Uneasy Start to Summer

Tue, 06 Jul 2010 16:39:41 GMT

U.S. GDP grew at a 2.7% annual rate in the first quarter of 2010, down from a 5.6% rate in the fourth quarter of 2009. Though it was revised down from a predicted 3% rate, this decrease is not a huge surprise, as few economists had expected a continuation of that Q4 growth. But this leaves the question of what will happen next, and it's a question that has become increasingly urgent as of the end of June.

Consumer confidence dropped in June, the Dow saw a decline and the U.S. economy produced only 83,000 jobs.

These indicators raise concerns that the economy could start slipping again, although the Wall Street Journal reports that "a double dip recession is still widely viewed as unlikely." But a number of problems are still driving concerns, with one major factor being the debt problems plaguing parts of Europe. Nations such as the UK and Germany are becoming more focused on narrowing budget deficits even as some experts warn that government stimulus spending remains necessary to keep the global economy from sinking. Another issue is the U.S. housing market, which is starting to weaken again as a result of declines in government support.

U.S. unemployment remains a high 9.7%, showing that there are still many Americans seeking work. In tandem with high productivity, a continuing use of temporary labor and slow job growth, this should continue to hold down unit labor costs and overall turnover rates in the near future. But it should be noted that last February, for the first time since 2008, the number of employees voluntarily quitting surpassed the number being let go. This could be a sign of the times if the economy continues to grow, and companies should be increasing retention efforts geared towards top employees, the group most likely to seek greener pastures as the economy improves.

See i4cp's Economic and Employment MONITOR - Summer 2010 for a PowerPoint summary of indexes monitored by i4cp on U.S. financial, productivity, consumer and employment figures.